Ribbon ceramic settlement Rössing
The ribbon ceramic settlement Rössing is a Neolithic settlement of the ribbon ceramic culture in Rössing in Lower Saxony . The around 4500 BC The existing settlement near the Leine was one of the first rural cultures in Central Europe . It is located on the northern border of the distribution of ceramic tape in Lower Saxony and on the extreme northwestern border of the Central European loess zone .
location
The former settlement is at 70 meters above sea level on an elevated point on the flood-free lower terrace of the Leine. It was located in the wetland of the river and was about 500 meters away from an earlier river arm. Ribbon ceramists usually settled on loess soil within loess landscapes. The area around Rössing is a loess landscape, but the building site of the ceramic settlement was a loess-like sediment over river gravel. Soil studies have shown that the loess was deposited by an Ice Age river and not by wind.
Research history
The site in what was then a gravel quarrying area outside of today's location was discovered by a local researcher in 1978 . A test excavation carried out by the Institute for Monument Preservation in Hanover in 1979 identified the area as a settlement for ribbon ceramists from around 4500 BC. BC, surrounded by traces of settlement from the pre-Roman Iron Age around 200 BC. The advancing gravel mining made an emergency excavation necessary in 1980 in order to document and recover the archaeological remains over an area of 8,000 m². Another rescue excavation was carried out in 1981 on 4000 m² by the archaeologist Erhard Cosack and further archaeological investigations took place in 1984 and 1985. The investigation area totaled 25,000 m². The entire settlement was not examined, the border of which was only recorded in the eastern area.
Findings
Buildings and pits
The ground plans of 40 post houses were documented on the basis of 800 post pits , including mainly long houses . The lengths of the houses varied between eight and forty meters. The width was six to seven meters. As is customary in band ceramics, the buildings were oriented to the north-west-south-east, with one narrow side facing the frequent wind direction north-west. The pits dug for the house posts were 1.2 meters deep and in places reached into the gravelly subsoil. A three-part house type was common among the house floor plans. Two house types were recognized that do not allow any comparison to other house types from this period.
On the long sides of the long houses and between the buildings there were 400 pits of different shapes and depths. They were probably used to remove the soil to plaster the wattle walls of the buildings. They were later used as a garbage dump. In addition, 300 filled storage pits were found .
Ceramic and stone finds
In the garbage pits in particular, the remains of ceramic vessels were found from the vessel shapes customary in ribbon ceramics with their typical ribbon decorations. On some of the vessels there were remnants of color paste on the decorative lines. A grain of corn was depicted as a symbol on a vessel . A depiction of the head of an animal was found on a piece of ceramic that probably served as the handle of a vessel. Other ceramics that were found were spindle whorls , which point to a spinning and weaving activity of the residents. Stone axes and flint cuts were found on stone tools. With almost 600 parts, millstone fragments , grinding and knocking stones and runners as the upper part of millstones were noticeably high . The amount of finds suggests that the earlier residents were intensively cultivating grain.
Plant remains
The plant remains recovered in the storage and waste pits were examined archaeobotanically . Seven crops can be identified that were cultivated by the previous residents. These include emmer , einkorn , barley , peas , lentils , flax and opium poppies . Hazelnuts and wild apples are documented as collecting plants . There were 12 species of weeds. 10 types of wood could be detected on the basis of charcoal residues. The examination of the charcoal still present in the post holes showed that the posts were mainly made of oak logs. Based on the findings, species-rich mixed oak forests in the vicinity of the settlement could be reconstructed, which had already been cleared by the residents.
literature
- Mamoun Fansa : A village of band ceramics in Rössing in: excavations in Lower Saxony. Archaeological monument preservation 1979–1984. Stuttgart 1985
- Mamoun Fansa: 7000 years ago. the first arable farmers in the Leinetal , 1988, Hildesheim
- Ulrich Willerding : Living and environmental conditions of the ribbon ceramic settlers von Rössing , Hildesheim, 1988
- Ulrike Weller: On the flint blade production in the flat ceramic settlement of Rössing, district of Hildesheim in: Die Kunde NF 50, 1999, pp. 51–74 ( online )
Coordinates: 52 ° 10 ′ 41.2 ″ N , 9 ° 48 ′ 0.4 ″ E